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Monday, September 16, 2013

Toddler Friendly Apps - Curious George's Town

As a parent, I try to limit my children's exposure to technology as much as possible. If they had their way, they could play games like Angry Birds or Sonic The Hedgehog for hours on end. That being said, my kids are drawn to my iPad like ants to sugar. If I allow them to play on the iPad at all, I want them to, at the least, be learning something in the process.

I recently was given the opportunity to review Curious George's Town with my boys...and much to my surprise, they no longer beg me to play those other games that leave them in a zombie-like trance. Read on to see why my kids and I love our latest app!

Game Activities

•Feed the animals at the pet store - Encourages problem solving
•Decorate a cake at the bakery - Counting, listening skills (taking the customer's order), color recognition, & creativity
•Sort books at the library - Recognizing letters of the alphabet
•Clean and recycle at the park - Sorting (plus a lesson in recycling!)
•Navigate through the town square maze - Color recognition
•Collect items from the checkout at the grocery store - Counting and object recognition

What Makes This Game So Much Fun

Of course, the main draw to this game is that both of my boys LOVE Curious George, and they love any game that allows them to extend their own creativity, such as drawing (they think it is pretty cool that they can decorate their own cake in the bakery!) and music.

Not only does this app help apply and sharpen their preschool skills, but the game focuses on teaching children the important lesson of "deferred gratification". For completing the certain tasks in each game, the child earns a coin. The child then saves the coins in their little piggy bank to purchase items to expand their town at a later time. These items remain a mystery until one of the current items is purchased. As the child plays the game, they learn to plan activities, set goals, and make strategic choices.

Additionally, parents can personalize a chore chart in the parent's only section of the app and reward the child with additional coins for completing their household chores.

Bottom Line

Curious George's Town is perfect for any child learning shapes, letters, and counting! With my children, I taught them these subjects using flash cards, which can be boring and monotonous. At Curious George's Town, they get to learn through play, which keeps them a little more focused. The fact that a game rewards them for doing their chores at home is a big bonus too!

A complaint that was raised in other reviews on the iTunes website was that this game was too repetitive. While playing this game with both my 3 and 4 year old, they were thoroughly entertained for 30 minutes (which is the longest I let them play on any game), and the tasks weren't entirely the same. For instance, the cake decorating allows the child to make decisions on how to decorate. After all, children learn better with simple repetition.

Another downside to this game is that it is only compatible with Apple products, which is not a big deal to me since our family has an iPad, but I would love to be able to access this game from either my or my husband's other smartphones, or maybe even from the pc.

If you have an iPhone or iPad and a young child, I would highly recommend this game!

My 16-month-old LOVES Curious George, but I think the little bit of the PBS show we let him watch is all the screen time he needs at this age. Maybe when he's a little older we'll look into this for special times. It does look like a more educational game than many!

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About Me

Alanna is a stay-at-home-mom of three little boys. Addicted to fluff, and all other things "green"...and yes, this does apply to food too ! Want to contact me? E-mail me at leettlehandsandfeet (at) gmail (dot) com